Saturday mess

Saturday morning I needed to get up a little early so I could get my chores on the boat done. Number one on the list was the dinghy and number 2 was to repair the boat's toilet leak. I stopped at my sister's and shanghi-ed my nephew Charlie to assist me. I needed to keep him busy so I had him inflate the dinghy and insert the flooring. He got bored after an hour. I took him home and my 18 year-old neice Katie and her boyfriend Sean wanted to go on a sail so I said be down at the boat by 4:00 I should be done by then. Of course I wasn't but by 4:30 we did get away from the dock. My friend Eric showed up too. Eric, ugh!

Eric's life seems to be in a downward spiral although to talk to him you wouldn't really know it. He has been out of work for about 6 weeks and doesn't seem to care too much because he hated what he does. He was a commercial insurance underwriter so I have to agree his job was very unexciting. Problem is I think he is just getting stoned pretty much non-stop since he stopped working. I always knew he was pretty into smoking pot and is pretty worthless when he does. Well, he showed up to do some work but when I drove my nephew home he smoked and just crapped out and kept asking "when are we gonna that the boat out". He was really annoying. I had my priorities and needed to finish my work.

I let him influence me and I hurriedly finished fixing my head leak and with Katie and Sean the four of us headed out into LI Sound.  We got out there and there was a pretty good wind and I was a little nervous but I figured I had some capable hands on the boat but I think I may have overestimated what we cound handle. We got the main up pretty easy and were making way pretty well but when we put up the jib the 36' boat heeled over and all kinds of stuff broke loose in the cabin. Katie lost her grip on a line and when I wanted to reef the sails no one really knew what to do. I was looking to Eric to pick up the slack but all he cared about was seeing the wind in the sails. I wasn't about to do any "white-knuckle" sailing so when Katie had trouble with the reefing line and we almost broached the boat I had Eric take the helm and sail into the wind and I immediately took allthe sails in. I was litterally shaking.

Eric wanted to motor out into the sound but all I could see was a building wind and thought better of it. I made the call that we were done. It was the right thing to do. So as we headed in Eric cut a bouy and put us on a sandbar. Just what I needed. I was ready to pitch a fit and maybe I did but I didn't say what I really wanted to say. We raised up the main which heaved the boay over enough to break us loose and we got into the channel. I really have to question Eric reliability now. I thought he was pretty capable but he nearly cost me the whole boating season.

After cleaning up the boat I wanted to go see Janet at The Downtown but by the time I got home and showered it was close to 11 P.M. so I didn't go. Then Lisa called and she and I sat on her steps and had a couple of glasses of wine. I thouroughly enjoy that.... my only non-stress event of the day. I really wanted to see Janet though and I figured I'd go to a free concert the next night anyway.